Concerning The Cancellation of Futurama

Andie Similon of gotfuturama.com writes: "We have recently heard from 4 reliable sources that fox did not pick up the 5th season of futurama. So it's going to get cancelled. We (the fans and webmasters of cgef and other websites) have set up a letter campaign to Fox,' but we need some big sites to spread the word. There are two possibilities of saving futurama A) some other network picking it up B) Fox realizing its mistake (I don't count on it), but the only way we can realise this is that we can get a very big amount of written letters to Fox." Go read the online petition and/or sign it. They've temporarily removed other content on anything else from the site -- there are priorities, after all. Futurama is one of the few shows that make me glad for the invention of television.

Download link for episodes

[Sarin]

You can download the aired futurama episodes at www.lando.co.uk [lando.co.uk]

Best of luck to you...

[Teancom]

But like the "Tick" guy said in his interview, the whole letter-writing campaign thing has been played to death. Especially when a show has been on the air for four years, you can't exactly expect the network to "just give it a chance to build an audience". If they haven't got their audience already, I'm afraid a couple hundred people writing and saying "but, but, it's cool!" isn't going to change their mind.

*shrug* Sorry, but that's the way it is...

Petitions have worked before

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't remember the entire history but America's Most Wanted was saved by petition. ABC dropped it, Fox picked it up, dropped it, and then brought it back after thousands of people wrote in complaining about the cancellation.

The networks do care what you think - without you they have no one to sell ads to. Write in today!

d/l the episodes

[lemonhed]

I have all seasons on my computer (it took up many many gigs).

www.lando.co.uk has the entire episode catalog for download.

get em while its still up!

See also:

[farnsworth]

see also "X-Fry" and "X-Bender" http headers at http://slashdot.org

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 21:29:08 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) mod_perl/1.25
mod_gzip/1.3.19.1a
SLASH_LOG_DATA: shtml
X-Powered-By: Slash 2.003000
X-Fry: It's like a party in my mouth and everyone's throwing up.
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

The Family Guy

[Anonymous Coward]

The Family Guy is another very hilarious Fox show, and apparently they are canceling it too. [planetfamilyguy.com] If you want to sign a petition go here [planetfamilyguy.com].

Re:Synchronicity

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheridan's interrogation in babylon 5. Too easy :)

Production costs

[molrak]

It's doubtful that Futurama or Family Guy could make the transition to cable using their current production methods. According to one Family Guy FAQ [planetfamilyguy.com], the average production cost of each episode is $1.1 million (U.S.). While that's peanuts for network television (for example, Friends' 6 primary cast members are almost making that much an episode per 'Friend'), 1.1 mil is still outside the reach of most cable outlets. In all probability, Futurama probably costs more due to the 3-d effects employed in its animation, and also has a higher profile voice cast (Billy West, Katey Sagal, and John Dimaggio [who won the Annie this year for best voice actor]). So the only chances of Futurama's survival are Fox or another network.

Two More Words: Adult Swim

[cryptochrome]

Yea verily, there is a place for canceled animated satire. It is called Adult Swim, and it is on Cartoon Network on Sundays, and already it has become a home for Baby Blues, Home Movies, Mission Hill, and the Oblongs. Unfortunately...

1) Cartoon Network is part of Time-Warner, which isn't on good terms with Fox. (Same problem with Comedy Central though).

2) Cartoon Network and Adult Swim are not well known with the mainstream adult audience, although they should be.

3) Cartoon Network doesn't have the cash for expensive shows, hence their reliance on low budget original shows and syndicated cancelled ones. They could afford to pick up existing Futurama episodes, but probably not make new ones.